Week in Review: TikTok's ban, Anta's popularity and mass retail's layoffs

Summary

The Glossy Podcast: Week in Review – TikTok's Ban, Anta's Popularity, and Mass Retail's Layoffs

Release Date: January 31, 2025

Hosted by Danny Parisi, Senior Fashion Reporter at Glossy, the latest episode of The Glossy Podcast delves into three significant developments impacting the fashion and luxury industries: the ongoing TikTok ban, the meteoric rise of Chinese sneaker brand Anta, and the wave of layoffs sweeping through mass retailers like Kohl's, Macy's, and JCPenney. Joining Danny is special guest Tom Nuwak, CMO of Evereve, who provides invaluable insights into these topics.

---

1. TikTok Ban: Navigating Uncertainty in Social Media Marketing

Overview: The episode opens with a discussion on the ambiguous status of TikTok in the United States. The app remains technically banned, yet former President Trump issued an executive order delaying enforcement for 75 days, creating a "murky" regulatory environment.

Key Points:

• Regulatory Confusion: The executive order's ambiguity leaves businesses uncertain about TikTok's future accessibility on platforms like the Apple App Store.

  Danny Parisi [04:23]: "It's really kind of weird and all up in the air."

• Marketers' Response: Brands are proactively reallocating their marketing budgets to alternative platforms such as Meta, Pinterest, and YouTube Shorts in anticipation of TikTok's uncertain future.

  Tom Nuwak [03:40]: "Marketers have already made plans about where that money might go and guessing where all the attention that is on TikTok will shift."

• Evereve’s Strategy: Evereve, under Tom's leadership, has chosen to focus primarily on Instagram, leveraging its established user base that aligns with their target demographic of 30 to 50-year-olds.

  Tom Nuwak [05:16]: "We've just sort of said we know that with a limited team, we can go all in on Instagram and do a good job."

• Emergence of New Platforms: The ban has spurred growth in alternative social media platforms like RedNote and Lemon8, as well as live stream shopping apps such as Whatnot.

  Danny Parisi [07:31]: "It does feel like there's maybe a gap to fill."

Notable Insights: Tom emphasizes the importance of understanding and adapting to shifting social media landscapes:

Tom Nuwak [10:49]: "My guess is the platforms that you would think would be the winners in this are going to be the ones who are the winners in it."

---

2. Anta's Ascent in the U.S. Sneaker Market

Overview: The conversation shifts to Anta, a Chinese sneaker brand that has witnessed explosive growth in the U.S., particularly noted for its collaboration with basketball star Kyrie Irving.

Key Points:

• Growth Metrics: According to StockX, Anta experienced a staggering 1,900% growth in 2024, positioning it as a formidable player in the sneaker market outside China.

  Danny Parisi [12:24]: "Last year ANTA was by far the fastest growing sneaker brand on StockX."

• Strategic Partnerships: Anta's collaboration with Kyrie Irving, who embodies a unique and provocative persona, has significantly boosted the brand's credibility and appeal.

  Tom Nuwak [18:48]: "That partnership with someone like Kyrie and the product that came out of it... feels pretty bold."

• Market Positioning: Anta leverages its deep financial resources to secure endorsements from professional athletes, mirroring strategies used by established brands like Nike.

• Evereve’s Parallel Growth: Drawing parallels to Evereve's strategic growth, Tom discusses the importance of understanding target customers and maintaining a focused expansion approach.

  Tom Nuwak [15:17]: "Slow and steady wins the race."

Notable Insights: Tom highlights the potential long-term sustainability of Anta's growth due to its vertical integration and strategic market positioning:

Tom Nuwak [15:17]: "I don't think they [ANTA] are going to have those kind of supply chain issues. So that's a big win for them."

---

3. Mass Retail Layoffs: Kohl's, Macy's, and JCPenney in Crisis

Overview: The episode concludes with an analysis of the recent layoffs and store closures announced by major U.S. retailers, signaling broader challenges within the retail sector.

Key Points:

• Kohl's Layoffs: Kohl's has announced a reduction of its corporate workforce by approximately 10%, equating to around 200-400 jobs, alongside the closure of 27 stores.

  Danny Parisi [20:04]: "Kohl's this week announced... layoffs of 10% of its corporate workforce, which they said is under 200 people, but that's still pretty significant."

• Wider Retail Struggles: Macy's and JCPenney are also closing stores and laying off staff, reflecting a troubling trend across both high-end and affordable department stores.

  Danny Parisi [21:10]: "Macy's is closing like 66 stores or something. There's layoffs at a lot of similar mass retailers."

• Underlying Causes: Tom attributes the struggles to a lack of clear customer focus and poor curation of product offerings. Unlike Evereve, which excels by deeply understanding its target demographic, mass retailers often attempt to cater to everyone, resulting in brand dilution and inefficiency.

  Tom Nuwak [22:05]: "We know who our customer is, and we know her inside out... They try to be everything to everyone, and then they end up standing for nothing."

• Pricing Strategies: The reliance on discounting and inconsistent pricing strategies alienates customers who prefer transparency and fair pricing.

  Tom Nuwak [22:58]: "They've just gotten into this discount trap where... they taught customers to wait for sales because those sales will always come."

• Potential Solutions: Tom suggests that some retailers might benefit from going private to escape the pressures of quarterly performance metrics and focus on long-term strategic changes.

  Tom Nuwak [26:31]: "Going private could be a solution because some of the choices you have to make... don't play very well in three month results meetings."

Notable Insights: Tom underscores the importance of having a clear "North Star" in retail strategy, emphasizing focused customer understanding over broad, unfocused market attempts.

Tom Nuwak [22:05]: "We know what belongs here, what doesn't belong here. They have everything. So it's cluttered. It's kind of overwhelming."

---

Conclusion

The episode provides a comprehensive analysis of the dynamic shifts within the fashion and luxury sectors. From the uncertain future of TikTok influencing marketing strategies, Anta's strategic maneuvers in the competitive sneaker landscape, to mass retailers grappling with operational challenges, The Glossy Podcast offers valuable insights for industry insiders and enthusiasts alike.

Danny Parisi [27:10]: "You summed up the kind of the situation perfectly. Thank you again for being here."

Listeners are encouraged to subscribe and leave reviews to stay informed on the latest industry trends and expert analyses.

---

Key Quotes:

• Danny Parisi [04:23]: "It's really kind of weird and all up in the air."
• Tom Nuwak [03:40]: "Marketers have already made plans about where that money might go and guessing where all the attention that is on TikTok will shift."
• Tom Nuwak [05:16]: "We've just sort of said we know that with a limited team, we can go all in on Instagram and do a good job."
• Tom Nuwak [10:49]: "My guess is the platforms that you would think would be the winners in this are going to be the ones who are the winners in it."
• Tom Nuwak [18:48]: "That partnership with someone like Kyrie and the product that came out of it... feels pretty bold."
• Tom Nuwak [15:17]: "Slow and steady wins the race."
• Tom Nuwak [22:05]: "We know who our customer is, and we know her inside out... They try to be everything to everyone, and then they end up standing for nothing."
• Tom Nuwak [26:31]: "Going private could be a solution because some of the choices you have to make... don't play very well in three month results meetings."

---

Stay Connected: For more in-depth discussions and industry insights, subscribe to The Glossy Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform. Don’t forget to rate and review to support the show!

Transcript

[Danny Parisi]

Hello, and welcome back to the Glossy Week in Review podcast. I'm your host, senior fashion reporter Danny Parisi, and I have a special guest host with me today, Tom Nuwak, who is the CMO of Evereve. Tom, thank you so much for being here.

[Tom Nuwak]

Yeah, thank you for having me.

[Danny Parisi]

I spoke to Tom last week for a story about Evereve, which in which I described the company as quietly huge. I think is the quietly huge. Quietly huge. Huge in the Midwest. I mean, based in Minnesota and just starting to kind of branch out, increase brand awareness. Tom, you have been playing a big role in that. And during our call, you mentioned that you were a fan of the Week in Review podcast, which immediately told me that you were a man of refined taste, who I was like, this guy has his head on straight. And we talked about having you on, and so I'm really happy you could be here. Thank you.

[Tom Nuwak]

It's a pleasure. I'm excited. I haven't done this before, so hopefully you'll make me sound really much smarter than I am.

[Danny Parisi]

You make yourself sound smart. Actually, part of the reason I wanted to have you on Build Me Up.

[Tom Nuwak]

I love it.

[Danny Parisi]

Part of the reason I wanted to have you on is because I felt like you had, you know, you gave me a lot of good info about Evereeve, but I felt like you had a lot of, you know, good thoughts on just marketing and retail in general and stuff that I think our listeners would find valuable. But this week, we're going to talk a little bit about the ongoing TikTok ban situation, which has continued into this weird, murky, gray area that we will talk about. We're going to talk about sneaker brand Anta, which is based in China, but has recently been seeing a lot of popularity outside of China. And then finally, we're going to talk about layoffs and some of the challenges happening at some mass retailers in the U.S. including Kohl's, but also Macy's and JCPenney and that kind of stuff. But let's start with the TikTok ban, which we've talked about on the podcast a couple times. Now entering this strange twilight area where the ban is in effect. But then Trump issued this extension executive order that kind of is murky and says for the next 75 days, they won't enforce the rule. And that's a little unclear. And it's basically, it is currently illegal to host TikTok on, like, the App Store or whatever. But Trump said that he won't enforce the law. I don't know about you, but I would not risk it. And I think a lot of companies are not. Like, TikTok is not available on the Apple App Store right now and probably won't be until there's a more definitive answer to the situation. It's really kind of weird and all up in the air. Tom, when we talked last, we talked a lot about Instagram and how you guys have been using it, but as a marketer, as you're observing this whole situation over the last couple of months, what's been your impression of what's going on?

[Tom Nuwak]

Well, I mean, your, your introduction of the topic. Weird, murky, illegal murky, which I think sums it up pretty well. And, and I, I think when you get all the experts in a room, the, the conclusion probably would be your guess is as good as mine. But the fact that there's so much confusion and that there's a cloud hanging over this says that. Yeah, I think marketers have already made plans about where that money might go and guessing where all the attention that is on TikTok will shift. If they're smart, they've done that. But, yeah, the future of TikTok, who knows? And I feel like I'd be stupid to even hazard a guest. I mean, I will say, like, it's fascinating. I love the soap opera, sort of.

[Danny Parisi]

Yeah.

[Tom Nuwak]

So this started with Trump saying, we got to get rid of TikTok. And then Jeff Yass gives a lot of money to Trump Republican campaigns. And then Trump says, well, now TikTok has a warm spot, spot in my heart. And I think it's because he does pretty well on TikTok. So he likes that about it. But I think marketers had better be prepared to put that money in another place. And we can already see that happening. I mean, we can see how much money has already shifted to meta into Pinterest YouTube shorts. Like that is taking place already. And that's only going to accelerate.

[Danny Parisi]

Yeah, it's interesting. I can't think of another scenario in which a commonly used marketing channel is like, suddenly becomes illegal or like, at least has a sudden severe, like, censure put onto it. It's like if all of a sudden, like, SMS marketing became illegal or something. And I guess there is. There's always regulations that you're dealing with when privacy laws change, that affects marketers as well. But it is really interesting to see there's a lot of brands, I think, who are heavily invested in TikTok. Sometimes they built their brand on TikTok.

[Tom Nuwak]

Yeah.

[Danny Parisi]

And then all of a sudden the platform is Severely kind of curtailed overnight and not without a little bit of preparation, but it did kind of come on pretty quick, I think, for, for a lot of people. Do you guys do much marketing through TikTok? I know you said primarily through Instagram, but have you messed with TikTok at all from a professional perspective?

[Tom Nuwak]

You know, we've done a little bit on TikTok, but. But I would say really it's just toes in the water. You know, we've got a pretty small team at Evereve, and, and one of my heroes, which is Ron Swanson from Parks and Rec, is well known for saying he'd rather do one thing whole assed than two things half assed. And so that's been our approach with how to use our resources in social. And so we've just sort of said we know that with a limited team, we can go all in on Instagram and do a good job, but if we start to try to have two different strategies, two different types of content, you know, I just didn't think we would really be able to pull that off and we would really do a great job on either. So, you know, we put some paid media and, and certainly we put our reels and we, we do run those within TikTok, but we're not spending a lot of time and resources to make sure that we're optimizing that content for TikTok. We're really focused on Instagram right now. So Evereve's customers tend to be between 30 and 50, so older millennials, young Gen X. And we know they're largely on Instagram and have been on Instagram the longest. So they're comfortable there. They know how to shop there. Our influencer partners are also there and are comfortable there. So we do know that that customer has been engaging with TikTok more and more. So then we think, well, we should probably be there. But we do know that even if she's on TikTok, she's on Instagram too. So. So either way, we're going to have a chance to get in front of her and have her experience the brand.

[Danny Parisi]

Right? And you know your audience well at this point. So that's, you know, I think that is a smart move. The other thing that's come out of the TikTok situation is a lot of newer kind of platforms, or at least newer to the public consciousness, have seen a lot of growth. RedNote, which I had never heard of before, like two weeks ago. Lemon8 is another one that Jill and I were joking. Like these sound like fake platforms.

[Tom Nuwak]

I uploaded lemon8 like 6 months ago or a year ago or something. And yeah, I don't ever think I ever went back in and touched it.

[Danny Parisi]

But then you get like weird situations like now where there is, it does feel like there's maybe a gap to fill. I actually just the other day talked to somebody from Whatnot, which is like a live stream shopping kind of app, but with vertical scrolling video feed. Very TikTok. Like they told me that their three best days ever for customer acquisition were like the day of the TikTok ban and then the two days after that they just like got so many, you know, New Year's coming in. Have you guys tinkered at all with like live stream stuff? I mean, I know you have EETV where you've got your people kind of talking about product, but that's not live, right? That's pre recorded.

[Tom Nuwak]

A couple of them are live.

[Danny Parisi]

Oh, you do do live?

[Tom Nuwak]

Yeah. Like on Monday mornings, Ashley, who's our director of styling, she goes live and sort of just talks about everything that's new in the warehouse. Because our we have new product coming in every day. We have very fast turnaround so we do that live. And then Heidi on Thursdays does hers live as well. So it's not like live social commerce where it's that integrated, although that's coming, but the content is live. But we do record it and then post the live as well. So if somebody didn't catch it, they've got a chance to see it.

[Danny Parisi]

Yeah, yeah. And when I talk to these people from Whatnot, they were saying it does feel like live streams in general either like the kind of like integrated shopping thing you might do on Whatnot, or just like you said, live streams that show off product and maybe it's not as tightly integrated does feel like it's a little bit lifting off and you know, if Whatnot's got a lot of new people, Instagram, you know, has a live feature that I think is pretty popular. Yeah, I could see that kind of filling a little bit of the void as well. But again, like you said, I think it's impossible to really know how this whole situation is going to shake out if TikTok does fully come back unrestricted. I mean it's a giant and I'm sure it will like, you know, having a weird blip of like a month or two where it's in this weird situation. I don't think it's gonna put a huge dent in it, but I do think it's made A little bit of an opportunity for some of these, these other platforms. Any. Do you wanna share any final thoughts on that before we move on?

[Tom Nuwak]

I have kind of been watching how Red Note, although it's also Chinese owned, so that doesn't make a lot of sense I guess in the long term. But I have been watching as the conversations around where is this going to go? And, and these smaller platforms and I mean I, I'd love to see that happen. I think it's good for everyone in the industry and keeps it having, having these innovators pop up. I guess if I, if I had to guess, I was reading that, you know, when TikTok was banned in India, I think this is like in 2020, there was a lot of conversation around where all that would go. And, and where did it go? It went to Instagram reels. Reels and YouTube shorts, which is kind of what I expect will happen here as well. So there may be sort of a flurry of experimentation, but when the dust settles, my guess is the platforms that you would think would be the winners in this are going to be the ones who are the winners in it.

[Danny Parisi]

Yeah, yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. I feel exactly the same way. A lot of experimentation. But at the end of the day, Instagram's right there. Probably people are already doing both anyway. I think that makes a lot of sense. Let's move on and talk a little bit about anta. Our sister publication, Modern Retail just wrote something this week about a Chinese sneaker brand called ANTA. StockX releases a report pretty regularly on the brands and products that are burning up the charts over there. And last year ANTA was by far the fastest growing sneaker brand on StockX. It grew like 1900 percent or something over the course of 2024. And again, when you're, when you're starting a little lower, the percentage is, can sometimes like, you know, a hundred percent of one is just another one, you know, so. But I, they're still, I mean they're a huge company in China, like $4 billion in revenue or something. So that's a pretty significant growth on ebay. There's the searches for the Kai one, which is kind of like their most popular sneaker, made with the basketball player Kyrie Irving. That's grown. Searches for that I think have grown by like 30% since last year. So this brand I feel like really has kind of come up very quickly in the sneaker world. Tom, I don't know if you're a big sneaker guy or like know much about the space, but it does feel like a space that's typically dominated by like Nike, Adidas, Jordan. But recently there's been a lot more, I think brands that are not one of those two or three making a little more penetration, getting a little more market share. What's your familiarity with like the sneaker world? Is that something you pay much attention to?

[Tom Nuwak]

No, I wouldn't say I'm a sneaker head, but as you wrote about every being in the Midwest, I also am in Midwest. And so maybe I've got kind of a middle American recognition of what's going on in sort of the true sneaker head world. But I guess I pay a little bit of attention to it. I don't know too much about Anta. And is that growth? That's US growth, right?

[Danny Parisi]

Yes.

[Tom Nuwak]

Yeah, yeah. I don't know a lot about them, but here's what I know. I know they're new. I would say what I know of this world is a disruptive player that can bring a new story, that kind of has an underdog thing to go up against big bad Nike and Adidas. Like people love that. I think people look for that. So that's playing to their benefit. You know, the question is how long lasting that can be. It sounds like they have really deep pockets. Like this is not a fly by night startup. So that tells me that they have the ability to be new and disruptive and make the investments for the long haul. So I think that is good for them. And because they have money, yeah, they're able to bring in a slew of professional athletes, which is like the handbook for building credibility for some of these brands. So I can see why it's starting to take off and why there's a lot of buzz around this brand.

[Danny Parisi]

Yeah, I mean, and you're right, they are pretty established. I mean I think they're a pretty established sportswear brand in China. And so the, the growth is like the upstartness is outside of China. And I think you're totally right that like at the moment, and you've especially seen it with Nike in the last year. Like not that Nike is not still totally dominant, but that dominance has lessened I think a little bit. They made a couple of sort of weird business decisions. They flip flopped a little bit on like DTC versus Wholesale. They've seen some of their market dominance slip just a little bit. And it's just enough for on and Hoka and Saucony and Asics and all these other. And now Anta to Kind of slip in and take a little bit of that share. One thing I was thinking is relevant to you is, I mean, you evereve is also a company, I think, that has had a pretty huge growth in brand awareness recently. I mean, when we talked, you were telling me they only really started to put money into marketing like four or five years ago when you joined. And the brand awareness has grown a lot since then. So do you have any thoughts on kind of how to manage that smartly if you're kind of established in one place? For Anta, it's China, for you, it's Minnesota. But you're established in one place and then you've got a solid foothold there. And now you're like, now it's time to branch out a little bit. I mean, what worked for you philosophically with doing that?

[Tom Nuwak]

Well, I look at our growth over the last five years and it's really popped. It's been fun to be a part of that story. And you know, in the world of retail and other brands I've worked on in the past, it's been more about can you reinvigorate a brand that's on down times or how do you manage decline? Like, that's so much of like, we'll talk about Kohl's and JCPenney. So it's been really rewarding to be part of a brand that is moving on up in the world of the Jeffersons. Right. What we found every is a pretty conservative company. So we're thoughtful about growth and especially as relates to opening, you know, physical stores. You know, we've got more than 100 now and we have moved in outside of kind of the central U.S. like, we've got a meaningful presence in Seattle now and, and in Los Angeles. Phoenix is a great market for us. Dallas, Atlanta, D.C. is coming on strong. So. But that's taken time. It's taken time to get our roots established there and we celebrate incremental growth. I guess I would say, like slow and steady wins the race. I don't know how ANTA feels. They have very deep pockets, so I could see them having the ability to make a very strong surge. And if they have that momentum behind them, like, I don't know that you get it that often. They should take advantage of it from an every world. Like, if we were able to grow that fast, the one thing we'd have to be keeping an eye on is just can we keep up from a supply and logistics standpoint, you know, if we get people to discover us to fall in love with us to make a visit and then we don't have the thing they, they really loved or we don't have it in the right size or yeah, it's coming, but it'll be here in four weeks. That's not a great first impression and that's not a way to keep people. My sense for Antic is I think they're vertically integrated. I don't think they're going to have those kind of supply chain issues. So that's a big win for them. I guess the biggest mistake they could make to try to be everything to everyone and to flood the market in retailers where they probably don't belong. You know, I probably don't think they should be on the shelves at, at Kohl's. But what is the boutique in New York that I read about? It's something Butter that they're at. Extra Butter. Extra Butter, yes. They should be at places called Extra Butter. That's where they belong. So it seems like they're doing a lot of great things.

[Danny Parisi]

Yeah, especially because. And last thing I'll say about Anta before we move on, but they also, I think, are boosted by kind of a singular product. They have the Kai one, which is this sneaker they made with Kyrie Irving, and that has been like, definitely their most popular product. It's out there and it's out there. And it's also like, I think there's been a halo effect where now their non signature, like non athlete collaboration sneakers are also getting a boost from, from the popularity of this one sneaker. And so that's always an interesting situation for brands too, when you've got one product or one thing that kind of goes viral a little bit. And then it's like, okay, how do we hitch everything else to that and make sure that we all get a boost?

[Tom Nuwak]

No, you're right. Air Jordan, when it came out, that's did the same thing for Nike and it was a halo for everything that came after it. And Kyrie can be that for Anta. What I kind of love about it is that Kyrie is a bit of an odd duck and he's controversial and provocative, so much so that Nike wasn't comfortable working with them anymore. So, I mean, it sort of says something about Anta that they would pick him up and maybe it's sort of like they needed to because they're up and coming and they weren't going to get the greatest players. But it also communicates that they are an outsider disruptor and they want to change things up. And I And that partnership with someone like Kyrie and the product that came out of it, which doesn't look like anything else, feels pretty bold. And I think that's a great way to come into the States. I mean, I'll be really interested to see what happens with their. The rest of their athlete lineup, because I was looking at it and it's sort of the island of misfit toys for some of these guys. Although I did see Dante DiVincenzo, who the Minnesota Timberwolves stole from your New York Knicks out there is an anti guy, so maybe that brand is coming my way.

[Danny Parisi]

Yeah. And I want to also make sure we have some time to talk about Kohl's. Since you mentioned it, I think it's a good kind of transition. So Kohl's this week announced, I think, layoffs of 10% of its corporate workforce, which they said is under 200 people, but that's still pretty significant.

[Tom Nuwak]

Well, I read 400.

[Danny Parisi]

Oh, was it?

[Tom Nuwak]

I don't know. You might be right, but that's what I read.

[Danny Parisi]

Yeah, it's definitely, I mean, a significant number of jobs. Earlier this month, they also announced that they were closing, I think, 27 stores. And then looking into it. I mean, you had suggested this topic, and I think it's a good one. Looking into it, Macy's and JCPenney also are closing stores. Macy's is closing like 66 stores or something. There's layoffs at a lot of kind of similar mass retailers, I would say. Certainly, I think retail is a hard business at any time. I'm always feeling, whenever I talk to people who have stores or especially multiple stores, I'm like, I can't imagine how complex and difficult that is. But it does feel like there is some sort of trend here between these three retailers. I mean, what's your take on what's happening here? Why is Kohl's and its contemporaries struggling?

[Tom Nuwak]

Well, I'll start with Kohl's. I mean, this is a. This is a sad story for a lot of reasons. A lot of people losing work. Stock down 50%. Third CEO in three years. But, you know, this is a. Kohl's is a Milwaukee company and I'm a Milwaukee boy. That's where I was raised and went to the Bucs center for Bucks game, the Kohl's center for Bucs games, and Herb Cole, the Wisconsin senator. So. And my Aunt Jan, who worked at Kohl's Corporate for many, many years. So that meant I got the family discount and my mom got the family discount and So I would mostly be getting Christmas presents that came from the Kohl's company. And the good news was they always had a very great return policy. But, yeah, it's been sad to see what's going on, even if it hasn't been unexpected.

[Danny Parisi]

Yeah, it definitely has. And I think at the same time, when I'm looking at, like, kind of who's struggling in retail, I'm seeing a lot of, like, the big department stores are also, like, the luxury kind of places. Like Saks has been just, like, not paying its brands for months now, which I know is causing a lot of, like, heartburn for a lot of people. So it's like, it seems like the. The higher end of the. The department store kind of world is. Is struggling, but then you look at, like, the more affordable price point, and they're also struggling. So do you think there. Is it something specific to, like, Kohl's and Macy's and JCPenney, or is it just a general, like, retail malaise or something? Because then there's plenty of companies that have lots of stores. Like you said, Evereve has over 100 stores, and you guys are profitable. And, you know, it seems like maybe not seeing some of those issues. Is there some universal retail kind of challenge that's hitting people right now?

[Tom Nuwak]

Well, I think for the brands you mentioned, there are common denominators of why those brands, those retailers are. Are on hard times. You know, you mentioned the. The success of Evereve, and I would say the success of Evereve begins and ends with that we know who our customer is, and we know her inside out, and we are super focused on her. What she needs, what she likes, what she expects, how we can surprise her while the coals of the world, you know, I think they try to be everything to everyone, and then they end up standing for nothing, you know, so. And I think you could say the same with JCPenney and Macy's or any of these companies who have gotten to this point. Like, I don't really know who they're for or that they know from a product standpoint, what's the point of view? I don't really see it. So that's kind of poor curation when I go in. And. And because they don't really have a great guide for what that curation should look like, what belongs here, what doesn't belong here. They have everything. So it's cluttered. It's kind of overwhelming. And I think all of these things stem from just not having a great North Star for who the customer is that they are trying to serve, you know, with, with inflation. Middle America is being hit hardest and I say the coals of the world are kind of stuck in the middle. They're not low price, but I wouldn't say they're special either. You know, that and for, for a long time they've been playing these pricing games. You know, it's kind of like, you know, game theory. They'll, they'll mark up the prices to be able to mark them down or, or Kohl's is like infamous for, you know, these know, hey, you'll get an extra 27% off on Wednesdays after 2:00 but before 3:00 in Cincinnati, you know, so, yeah, so I think some people like that. I think some people like the game of that and the pursuit of that. It's fun. But I think most customers and certainly younger customers aren't having it. I, I think they are just, can we just tell me what a fair price. Can you make it transparent and stop the games? And the other thing on the pricing game is, you know, probably the death knell for so many retailers over the years is they've just gotten into this discount trap where, you know, they've taught customers to wait for sales because those sales will always come. You know, that's like retail opioids. Like that is a meaningful detox to try and get yourself out of that habit. And, and if you're going to do it, you're gonna, you're gonna suffer. You're, you know, you're gonna lose, you're, make people angry, you're gonna lose them for a time. And that's where I think things like maybe going private could be a solution because some of the choices you have to make, some of the behaviors you need to stop, some of the investments you need to make. Like these are, you know, three year transformations that I don't think play very well in three month results meetings. Like you're going from a three month window of impressing Wall street to having three years to think about these things. I don't know if you don't have the room to breathe and make tough decisions and think about the long term, how you, I think you kind of need to be able to do that to pull off a turnaround.

[Danny Parisi]

I think that all the time that probably a lot of big changes at a company would be so much easier if you were not publicly traded because you have to report everything and every, every little slowdown or misstep gets reported. And yeah, I can't imagine the pressure of that.

[Tom Nuwak]

I mean, that's why Nordstrom made that switch recently, for the exact same reasons. Yeah.

[Danny Parisi]

Yeah, I think they wanted to restructure, and it's a lot easier to do that without shareholders and the public kind of looking over your shoulder. But, Tom, I think you. You summed it up perfectly. And unfortunately, I think we're out of time, but I think you summed up the kind of the situation perfectly. Thank you again for being here. This was a great conversation. And thanks for, you know, being a fan of the podcast and joining us.

[Tom Nuwak]

It's a lot of fun. Thank you.

[Danny Parisi]

For those of you listening, don't forget to give us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to this, because that helps us out so much. And don't forget to subscribe to the glossy podcast to hear information interviews with industry insiders every Wednesday. And we can review episodes with me and sometimes with guest hosts like Tom every Friday. Again, thank you so much, Tom, for being here.